michaelbutcher

Last years economic collapse was brought on by corruption from INTERNATIONAL bankers, this includes high powered greed from the Great Britain and the EU and not American greed alone. The only country sitting pretty and not suffering during these times is probably China with their socialist-capital ideals. Capitalism is greed, and greed is capitalism.

And Australia. You forgot Australia. Last three recessions never touched them.

http://lauriebaker.net/work/work/baker-on-...chitecture.html Laurie Baker Architect

Depends on which hemisphere you live in to a large extent, but Laurie Baker's principals for architecture in the tropics - designing using natural air flow for cooling is a very good start. And it's a much healthier, and much more a pleasant living environment than energy guzzling, germ infested air con units.

Imagination is what seems to be lacking and prejudice the main impediment to a healthier, more ecologically sustainable way of living.

Great link wilsongbrown, I've never heard of her but she sounds like she's got the right approach for the tropics

For me, a green home here in thailand would be one that relies on environmentally friendly materials, tries to use water wisely, ie water storage for gray water, etc, utilizes natural energy; solar, wind. and most importantly, the residents attempt to compost and recycle as much as possible.

Seems as though you didn't bother to follow the link to educate yourself on the great architect Laurie Baker who recently died - he was a man.

God this forum's going down hill - I know, you're all thinking that's not possible right? Pulling readers' letters from LAST WEEK's Phuket Gazette about the same old boring topics with the same old boring responses. No wonder Lopburi99 threw in his hat, no doubt along with many others.

Here's a challenge - Post something more original. For the Love of God...

Quite recently, someone posted on a particular 'local' forum, asking whether all expats were a fair representation of the types of people deciding to live here in Thailand. The threads turned into the usual bunfight by the usual suspects and the threads were terminated.

I've thought about this before, and have to say that although there's some useful, and much erroneous, information here on this forum, I'm very happy I hadn't come across it before deciding to relocate here.

Would you have relocated anyway? And if not, why not?

Australia allows dual citizenship, as does the Uk and many other countries.

I know this for a fact as the Thai wife of a friend of mine told me she always uses her Australian passport wherever she travels to avoid 'the look' and ensuing hassle.

As to the original question. I would agree with the poster who said some time ago that he wouldn't want Thai citizenship as 'citizenship' implies you would be proud of where you came from. And who on earth would be proud to come from the corrupt demi-monde that is Thailand?

No idea why this should be 'newsworthy'. It's well known throughout the world and their neighbouring countries, that the Thais sell themselves at the drop of a hat (or ...), why not their vote?

Suicide??!! Would all those members on this forum ready to pull out statistics at the drop of a hat Naam please inform us of the numbers of suicides worldwide using bombs/grenades/plastic explosives to blow themselves up. Except for muslims. Thankyou.

Having lived in Thailand for enough time to enable a fair evaluation of the types of people who choose to live here (Thailand) rather than there (their 'home countries') and have found for the most part, they seem to feel in some way more intrepid, or, less racist (as some poor delusional woman sought to convince herself, on another thread somewhere), than their home country counterparts.

I'm here for the weather and the food (not the 'culture' ...), but some back home choose to put up with the endless cold rain in return for being able to visit galleries, theatres, proper stand up comedy, proper pubs, clubs etc.

After the initial warm, fluffy feeling toward their fellow expats and locals has worn off, most of them would prefer to stay within the confines of their gated community, moo baan giving barely a nod or 'good morning' to their fellow ex compatriots, having realised that the people they meet actually living here are either straight out of a French and Saunders skit (pass the bacardi breezer/can of chang), El Dorado soap (congenitally chav/colonel blimp), or having not been able to fully embrace the diametrically opposed culture or mix thereof, profoundly neurotic, aka lost the plot.

I do from time to time come across some interesting chaps here, but they all say the same thing - they'd prefer to stay at home as unless you're up to a night out at the local karaoke/gogo bar, there's nothing else here. Is there?

Anyone else getting this annoying message "ERROR URL could not be found SOCKET ERROR" etc?

Two days now and keep having to refresh. I ran spybot (after first getting a list of 'bad checksum's on my updates - nothing too unusual there, had before), and then a chirpy 'congrats, no immediate problems found' (note the word 'immediate')

I have AVG and Spybot. Anyone else having this since yesterday?

When outside Thailand, as now, I find a classifieds forum with the words 'sold' and 'baht' in it to give concise and intelligent reporting of whatever's happening in the country with no bickering posts to distract. Hope this helps.

The particular investment company checks out incredibly well in my extensive research.

you checked the company's books/balance sheets at their premises in Nigeria?

How original. No Naam, as anyone with a modicum of intelligence would do when contemplating engaging in business with anyone, anywhere - whois.net and then on to cvgadget

yeah.... right....

Your talking about tourists coming from a country where the worst beach on its worst day is still infinitely better than any of the beaches that Phuket offers. One things Aussies dont go to Thailand for is the beaches.

A few years ago, on my first and only visit to Australia, I took advantage of the clement spring weather to do some walking. Upon rounding Sydney's beachside road, I had a double take, literally, and had to go and check the sign pointing to the tiny rock strewn grey sanded 'beach' with the godawful concrete backdrop was indeed the famous Bondi.

in reference to several aforementioned posts, intermediary fees are, under many circumstances, offered by principals, so that the solicitacious adverts would be more enticing and appealing to potential investors.

a prearranged percentage of money pooled by intermediaries would be deducted from the initial investment committed by the investors, as business expenditures, which subsequently would appear in the principals' accounting as various necessary business related expenditures....

many principals appear to have certain investment ideas but do not necessarily have the financial connection to people with money to invest. so the intermediaries such as brokerage firms, financial institutions, private investment companies and such, do strive and flourish under certain economic conditions....

the advert and the terms might appear very enticing and profitable.... but cavert emptor

you may not ever smell your green again....

there are plenty of pyramid builders out there .... indeed cavert emptor, my friends.

Arai wah? I've already stated NO fees are required to be paid by any principal, only a complete idiot would pay to have money paid to him. Oh yes, just remembered another thread regarding someone being banged to rights for soliciting, and being paid 20k baht, for access to a lottery win they'd never entered, so there's a lot of them about. Idiots, that is.

The particular investment company checks out incredibly well in my extensive research. Are you pissed?

On various business related and social networking forums, you will sometimes see people offering to 'get funding for you', usually between 100k and 5mil usd. Are they brokers of some kind? Do they get a percentage in commission from any leads? I'm assuming not all investment funders go seeking out possible recipients themselves, nor are they likely to be approached by the average man in the street, who wouldn't know how to get to them. Would they.

Yessss, do take to dodging very gingerly midst those parts of the island populated with them, although they seem to be everywhere.

If anyone in the Phuket area's re-doing their plot and need to offload any palms other than coconuts (did see someone advertising in the local paper asking if someone would come and collect a large palm rather than have it chopped down) please pm me and I'll arrange pick up Thanks

Who are these people offering multimillion baht investor funding from overseas? Not a scam surely as they don't ask for any 'processing' fees?

I'm on Phuket and quite like the idea of a row of nice tall coconut trees along the front of the house, and to hel_l with the neighbours

No, seriously, wife says will be presented with bills from irate car owners and the like when a strong wind comes blowing down the soi.

What's the best way to harvest the fruit before they're ready to drop? Rent-a-monkey?

Couldn't stand to look at the turgid pool any longer, and just bought 20k drum of pool chlorine from Rawai Hardware for 3k. This is an 800 baht increase on two years ago at the same store with two price rises of 400 baht a time (2,200 two years ago), so seems not such a bad deal. Although wondered why each time the price increases it's always 400 dead on. Oh well. Rather fill the dam_n thing with Koy anyway but wife won't let me, says it'll ruin the tiles.

Anyone can advise as to where to buy pool chlorine and how much for the big tubs? Thanks.

Apologies, just to clarify. I opened the account in Thailand with a debit card from Bangkok Bank. There's nothing in it and I need to pay for some freelance services via Paypal.

Upon opening the relevant page in my account, there's a line in red saying something along the lines of 'to add funds from a US bank account' - nothing about how to add funds from outside the US.

In my humble opinion this has nothing at all to do with 'illegal workers'. After all, as has already been stated, why on earth would someone come here to actually 'work', miserable rates of pay etc, and everything to do with ongoing attempts (note various clampdowns on skimpily clad karaoke girls etc) to rid the country of it's reputation as the world's number one sexpot hotspot.

Yet another hammer to crack a nut a la 'clamp down' on nominees by junta after the horse (Taksin) had bolted.

had a 'head's up' from long term friend and orbortor official saying there're widespread plans afoot to seek out all foreigners' investment property here and 'remedy' anything looking slightly dodgy. between the lines from aforesaid, they want all foreign investment to cease immediately (in light of no outside investment here, they seem to think that foreigners have grabbed the lion's share of land - notwithstanding the fact the locals themselves have profited from the many sales in the past), quickly followed by an 'ousting' of any foreigners 'deemed' to have been in breach of any and all thai based property laws.

like what it says in the heading. paypal's account page comes up with 'from us bank' underlined in red.

what if you don't have a us bank? is there some way to insert funds into your account from thailand?